Duane’s World: Should The Cynics Cheer Up and Accept The New, Successful Toronto FC?

The Vocal Minority have a well-earned reputation for reserving excitement towards the Mighty Reds of Liberty Village, and resisting the temptation for hyperbole when reporting on positive play by the club.

For years, this was a sensible direction to take. When Danny Koevermans called them the Worst Team in the World five seasons ago, I actually set out to objectively study the statement. In an article I wrote for Canadian Soccer News (sadly the link is dead now ‘cause we deleted all of 2011-12 after the 6 day bender that followed the Bloody Big Deal press conference), I demonstrated that Kovermans was slightly off; TFC was only the 7th worst performing team playing in a first division league over the previous season’s worth of games.

I’ve mentally blocked out the formula I used, but that was illustrated by, like, math and stuff. Objectively, TFC was the 7th worst team in the world. Subjectively, the poor bastard likely had a point. Why he still seems to love the club is both endearing and confusing.

So, yeah. The VM Crew have been justified in their cynicism. It’s also understandable that they would be slower to react to this strange new reality of Toronto FC.

Naturally, when Greg Vanney says things like “TFC is the deepest MLS team of all-time,” the reaction around here is to snort and think of ways to out joke one another in efforts to dismiss the statement as prosperous. I, however, am the interloper writing for VM on the side. I’m less encumbered by the cynical past and can evaluate the statement on its face value.

God help me, I think he’s right. Beyond that, I’m not even sure there’s much competition to the claim.

Yes, Recency Bias is going to play a role in this evaluation. Bias is unavoidable, but it can be overcome by simply putting things into a logical context. The context of this debate is TFC’s current eight game undefeated streak, which includes seven wins. In the history of MLS, only a handful of teams have played a stretch like that. What puts the run in the conversation for the best regular season run of form by a MLS team, however, is the six wins in a row over 22 days.

That doesn’t happen. Ever. It rarely happens that a team even wins three in eight, and when the third game is an opposite coast road game…What? How? TFC???

It was from that run that Vanney made his bold statement, and if you’re going to argue it then you need to show your work. The reality is that players like Jay Chapman, Jonathon Osorio, Armando Cooper, hell, even Jordan Hamilton are all regular starters for 80 percent of MLS teams. All fight tooth and nail to see the pitch for TFC.

That’s not a situation that is normal in MLS history, where a strict salary cap prevented teams from building anything close to depth. There’s a reason MLS has consistently failed to compete internationally and that they are starting to do better – that reason is depth.

So, it turns out that maybe it’s not that bold of a statement to say TFC is the deepest MLS team of all-time. Maybe it’s really just saying they are the deepest team now because all MLS teams now are deeper than even the deepest teams of as recently as five years ago.

If you want to have that debate there’s really only one other team in the discussion – FC Dallas. There, I would argue that TFC’s top end talent is higher, which tips the scale in their favour, but I acknowledge there is a conversation to be had.

Regardless, the more interesting debate is this: Is TFC the *best* MLS team of all-time?

That answer won’t come until December.

Author: Duane Rollins

Duane Rollins is the third most popular fill in guest on the Vocal Minority Podcast. He also hosts the daily soccer podcast SoccerToday on SportsPodcastingNetwork.com, as well as half-assed managing CanadianSoccerNews.com.

3 Comments

Duncan Fletcher

June 2, 2017

I’d wait a while before deciding this is for real and amazing.
is this tfc’s best team ever? probably so yes, and it’s been a very impressive couple of months or so.
but TFC always do this, they start slowish, improve in the 2nd quarter of the season, then tail off and stumble their way through the rest (remember when bez said something about july onwards is when the league figures everyone out and from there you need good managers to keep getting results.)
even 2007 and 2012, when tfc were at their worst, they had a good little run at about this time of year, then reverted back to being shit.
even the successful years, 2014, looked good, imploded in 2nd half, 2015, looked good, just stumbled into playoffs only by beating the shit teams, then imploded when they got there. 2016, looked good, stumbled into the playoffs then everything worked out as far as who they played, and there was a bit of luck (3 set piece goals in one game? from tfc? that had to happen just to get to extra time) until they ran into a defensively competent and hot team and they couldn’t quite win.

Is what you say possible? absolutely.
are we here too grumpy and cynical? very possibly, yes.
does tfc’s history suggest they’ll regress a bit? yes.
is it too early to tell anything really yet? yes.

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We are an independent group of passionate Toronto FC supporters that love their club, but are all too aware that love is far from blind. Join us as we write, rant and podcast through the trials and tribulations of supporting The Reds. A football site with a pop-culture slant, we bring you TFC news and opinion from the stands, with a healthy dose of gallows humour and malarkey. We are The Vocal Minority.